The Original Pop Century Resort Map and Master Plan

We talked about how Disney’s Pop Century Resort is only half a century in a previous post. Today we look at the other half of Disney’s Pop Century Resort Map.

When Disney originally talked about the resort they released a concept art image of the Pop Century Resort map plan. This featured a tiny glimpse of what was due to be built. Here for your viewing pleasure is said map.

The resort is laid out in T shaped accommodation blocks. Each cluster is based around a theme. Withe Disney’s Pop Century each cluster is set up around the celebration of American Pop Culture over the previous Decades. The resort was also split into two halves, the Classic Years and the Legendary Years. The Classic Years looked at the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. The Legendary years looked at the 1900s, 10s, 20s, 30s and 40s.

The Classic Years was built and completed in and officially opened in 2003.

The Legendary Years half of the resort was put on hold as a number of global challenges hit home at the same time.

The Accommodation blocks were split from top to bottom.

1940s – Has a US 66 shaped pool.
1930s – doesn’t have a pool but instead had a giant board game on the floor.
1920s – Has a giant pool in the shape of a Coca Cola Bottle.
1910s & 1900s – shared a block with a rocket shaped pool.
*also notice a cluster of trees that form a T-Shirt shaped garden in the car park!

1940s

The 1940s featured a pool in the shape of the US 66 road sign. The Route was built during the late 20s into the 30s but it became iconic during the 1940s when singers and songwriters created its legend.

1930s

The 1930s saw the rise of board games and in 1935 the game Monopoly became a staple part of family gaming. This decade doesn;t have a swimming pool, but instead a collection of iconic displays. In this concept art notice the rocket on the right hand side!
The Rocket was one of the few items that had actually started to be produced.

This mysterious item found on an aerial photo from Bing Maps caused a lot of discussion.

As an unpainted fibre glass structure many people thought it was the Yellow Submarine, which in all honesty didn’t look like this. It was in fact based upon the Buck Rodgers Wind up Rocket Ship.

The detail between this item and the large sculpture is amazing. Notice the metal overlaps and pronounced seam. Best of all is the wind up key which is on the ground behind it. The entry hole in on the side at the rear. This Buck Rogers Rocket Patrol wind up toy was popular in 1934.

1920s

The 1920s features a coca cola bottle shaped swimming pool complete with bottle cap kiddies pool. By the 1920s coca cola was so popular that it was available in all but six soda fountains in America.

1900 – 1910s

Which leaves us with the 1910s and 1900s. Just like on the other half of the resort the 2 decades were pushed together. The swimming pool is in the shape of an Airship. Unfortunately that is all I have to share about these last 2 decades.

Construction Stopped.

Construction was halted quite quickly after the global economic downturn and the devastating affects from 9/11 saw guest number drop at Walt Disney World. The resort had completed its first half and was well underway on the second half. When the decision was made the building were left as was. Two buildings from the 1940s had been built along with Legendary Hall. Foundations had been laid for the third one and the beginnings of the 1930s had been tackled.

To Show how complete the buildings were a modern aerial shot shows what Disney wouldn’t really want you to see.

The original 2 buildings share the same amount of environmental damage that the Classic Years have. While the Newer buildings of the now Art of Animation Resort have brand new clean roof tops. Obviously there is no real need to clean the other ones up as know one would know… or would we??

Now that the resort has been changed into the Art of Animation Resort. Would you have preferred the first half of DIsney’s Pop Century Resort? What happened to Buck Rodgers Rocket Ship? Would the US 66 been different to the Cars section of the Art of Animation Resort? What are your thoughts?